Central New York is the central region of

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. stat ...

, including the following

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

and

cities A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

: With a population of about 773,606 (2009) and an area of , the region includes the Syracuse metropolitan area.

Definitions

The New York State Department of Transportation's definition of the Central/Eastern region includes the counties of Albany, Broome, Chenango, Columbia, Cortland, Delaware, Fulton, Greene, Herkimer, Madison, Montgomery, Oneida, Onondaga, Oswego, Otsego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Sullivan, Ulster, and Washington, but does not commit itself to a definition of Central New York ''per se''. Cortland County and Tompkins County are often considered part of the New York State region called the Southern Tier; the

ski country Ski country is the hilly, snowy portions of the boundary between the Niagara Frontier and the Southern Tier of the western part of New York. Weather The area is a largely hilly terrain, mostly downwind from Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the F ...

demarcation line runs through Cortland County. Tompkins County, which includes

Ithaca Ithaca most commonly refers to: *Homer's Ithaca, an island featured in Homer's ''Odyssey'' *Ithaca (island), an island in Greece, possibly Homer's Ithaca *Ithaca, New York, a city, and home of Cornell University and Ithaca College Ithaca, Ithaka ...

at the edge of

Cayuga Lake Cayuga Lake (,,) is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, and is the second largest in surface area (marginally smaller than Seneca Lake) and second largest in volume. It is just under long. Its average width is , and it is ...

, is also considered part of the

Finger Lakes The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located south of Lake Ontario in an area called the ''Finger Lakes region'' in New York, in the United States. This region straddles the northern and transitional ...

. Oneida County and Herkimer County are often considered part of the New York State region called the Mohawk Valley, although the "Central New York" and "Mohawk Valley" definitions overlap. Only Onondaga County, Cayuga County, Oswego County and Madison County are always considered "Central New York".

History

During the early historic period, the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

(Haudenosaunee, Five Nations) successfully excluded Algonquian tribes from the region. The

Central New York Military Tract The Military Tract of Central New York, also called the New Military Tract, consisted of nearly of bounty land set aside in Central New York to compensate New York's soldiers after their participation in the Revolutionary War. Establishment T ...

(land reserved for soldiers of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

) was located here. Many towns derived from the tracts have classical names.

Higher education

Major colleges and universities in the region include Syracuse University, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Colgate University,

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a private liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York. It was founded as Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and was chartered as Hamilton College in 1812 in honor of inaugural trustee Alexander Hamilton, following ...

Le Moyne College Le Moyne College is a private Jesuit college in DeWitt, New York.http://www.ongov.net/planning/haz/documents/Section9.7-TownofDeWitt.pdf It was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1946 and named after Jesuit missionary Simon Le Moyne. At its fo ...

SUNY Oswego State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego or Oswego State) is a public college in the City of Oswego and Town of Oswego, New York. It has two campuses: historic lakeside campus in Oswego and Metro Center in Syracuse, New York. SUN ...

SUNY Cortland The State University of New York College at Cortland (SUNY Cortland or Cortland State College) is a public college in Cortland, New York. It was founded in 1868 and is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. History The State Un ...

Utica College Utica University is a private university in Utica, New York. The university dates back to the 1930s when Syracuse University began offering extension courses in the Utica area. In 2016, the university enrolled 3,084 undergraduate students and ...

, SUNY ESF,

Cazenovia College Cazenovia College is a private college in Cazenovia, New York. Founded as the Genesee Seminary in 1824 and sponsored by the Methodist Church, in 1894 the college adopted the name of Cazenovia Seminary. It was reorganized in 1942 after church sp ...

Morrisville State College State University of New York at Morrisville (formerly Morrisville State College) or SUNY Morrisville is a public college with two locations in New York, one in Morrisville and one in Norwich. It is part of the State University of New York syst ...

Wells College Wells College is a private liberal arts college in Aurora, New York. The college has cross-enrollment with Cornell University and Ithaca College. For much of its history it was a women's college. Wells College is located in the Finger Lakes ...

and SUNY Polytechnic Institute.

Media

Major newspapers in the region include the ''Oneida Daily Dispatch'', '' Syracuse Post-Standard'', '' Auburn Citizen'', ''Rome Daily Sentinel'', ''

Ithaca Journal ''The Ithaca Journal'' is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper published in Ithaca, New York. It is locally edited and printed in Johnson City, New York, and publishes Monday through Saturday. It has been owned by Gannett since 1912. Publication ...

'', and ''

Utica Observer-Dispatch The ''Observer-Dispatch'' (''The O-D'') is the largest newspaper serving the Utica-Rome metropolitan area in Central New York, circulating in Oneida County, Herkimer County, and parts of Madison County. Based in Utica, New York, the publica ...

''. The region is served by several television stations based in Syracuse (including ABC affiliate

WSYR-TV WSYR-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on Bridge Street (off NY 290) in East Syracuse (a village of DeWitt), and i ...

, NBC affiliate

WSTM-TV WSTM-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to CBS affiliate WTVH (channel 5) through a local marketi ...

, CBS affiliate

WTVH WTVH (channel 5) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the only station whose broadcast license continues to be owned by Granite Broadcasting, a moribund company (controlled by Greenwich, C ...

, Fox affiliate

WSYT WSYT (channel 68) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Imagicomm Communications. The station's studios are located on James Street/ NY 290 in Syracuse's Near Northeast sect ...

and PBS member station

WCNY-TV WCNY-TV (channel 24) is a PBS member television station in Syracuse, New York, United States. Owned by The Public Broadcasting Council of Central New York, Inc. it is sister to classical music radio station WCNY-FM (91.3). The two stations shar ...

) and Utica (NBC/CBS affiliate

WKTV WKTV (channel 2) is a television station in Utica, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC, CBS, and The CW Plus. Owned by Heartland Media, the station has studios on Smith Hill Road in Deerfield (with a Utica postal address), and ...

, ABC affiliate

WUTR WUTR (channel 20) is a television station in Utica, New York, United States, serving the Mohawk Valley as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Nexst ...

and Fox TV affiliate

WFXV WFXV (channel 33) is a television station in Utica, New York, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Mohawk Valley. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNY-LD (channel 11); Nexstar also ...

Speech patterns

Central New York is near the eastern edge of the dialect region known as the

Inland North Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of U ...

, which stretches as far west as Wisconsin. The region is characterized by the shift in vowel pronunciations known as the

Northern Cities Vowel Shift Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of U ...

, although in recent decades the shift has begun to fade out among younger generations. Many Central New Yorkers pronounce words like ''elementary'', ''documentary'' and ''complimentary'' with

secondary stress Secondary stress (or obsolete: secondary accent) is the weaker of two degrees of Stress (linguistics), stress in the pronunciation of a word, the stronger degree of stress being called ''primary''. The International Phonetic Alphabet symbol for ...

on the ''-ary'', so ''elementary'' becomes , instead of the more widespread pronunciations of and . This feature is shared with the rest of

Upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...

. The word ''soda'' is used for soft drink in Central New York; this distinguishes it linguistically from

Western New York Western New York (WNY) is the westernmost region of the U.S. state of New York. The eastern boundary of the region is not consistently defined by state agencies or those who call themselves "Western New Yorkers". Almost all sources agree WNY i ...

, where ''pop'' is used.

References